Sunday, August 19, 2007

Patriots, your country calls.

The news from Iraq isn't getting any better: our soldiers are still being asked to sacrifice beyond any reasonable demands. A drawdown of forces may have to come as a result of commitments the Army has already made to the troops in the field.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable.

But are those the only options? There are two unspoken choices:

that recruiting offices across the country see a surge of enlistees to replace those men and women who have already given more than a grateful nation can expect, and

that the military leadership asks for and receives the permission to draft the troops it needs to complete the mission.

Conscription is unpopular, to be sure, but is it preferable to a forced retreat? Can we expect the brave men and women already deployed to do still more? Enlistment by the many young heterosexual men and women who have called for victory these past five years would prove that they are sincere and would remove the possibility of a divisive draft.

The choice is yours, young patriots. Nothing worth achieving comes without a fight: this could be your chance to demonstrate your commitment.